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PES representatives visit Palestine & Israel

12/05/2017

Representatives of the Party of European Socialists returned this week from Palestine and Israel where they met with members of associate parties in the region.

PES deputy secretary generals Yonnec Polet and Giacomo Filibeck met with Mrs Fadwa Barghouti, wife of detained Palestinian leader and parliamentarian Marwan Barghouti, who is leading a hunger strike of Palestinian detainees in protest against their conditions, and with Majed Bamya who is in charge of the prisoners' file at the Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

They also met with Azzam Al-Ahmad, Head of the Fatah parliamentary group; Rawhi Fatouh, Fatah Commissioner for International Relations; and Nasser Al-Qidwa, member of the Fatah Central Committee.

The Party of European Socialists is following the hunger strike with great concern, and echoes the call of the EU representations in Jerusalem and Ramallah to the Israeli government for the full respect of humanitarian law and human rights obligations towards all prisoners.

PES meetings also took place in with Hilik Bar, vice-president of the Knesset, whose Labour Party is due to elect a new leadership in July; and with Uri Zaki, chairman of the Meretz Council.

They also discussed the perspective that the actions of the Netanyahu government makes the possibility of peace more remote, and stressed that the two-state solution must remain the goal towards which all sides will work.